Concept
The operations manual
The operations manual is Michael Gerber's name for the written record of how a business does its recurring work, so that someone with less experience could do it the same way without asking. It is what makes a business something that can be handed over.
For a small business the manual can be a folder of one-page documents rather than a binder. Each is written by the person who does the task: how a new customer is onboarded, how a job is quoted, how a delivery is packed, how a complaint is handled, how the accounts are split. Writing it changes the work as well as recording it, because the act of writing down how you quote reveals that you quote three different ways, and systems that can be seen get improved. The test of a page is that someone else follows it once without asking you anything. It matters even if you never hire, which links it to Paul Jarvis's idea of a company of one: the manual is what makes your size a choice. A business with one can take on help for a month, hand over to a locum, or be sold, and a business without one is you.
A real-life example
A beekeeper near Muğla writes down the jobs she has always done from memory: the spring hive check, the harvest, filling and labelling jars, posting online orders. Seven pages. When she breaks her wrist in June, a neighbour's son follows the pages for six weeks. One batch of labels goes on upside down; every order ships.
How to use it
- 1One page per recurring process, in the order it happens, exceptions at the bottom.
- 2The person who does the thing writes the page and owns its improvement.
- 3Test each page by having someone follow it once while you watch and say nothing.